Fiona Apple cancels tour to stay with dying dog

In an emotionally touching four-page letter posted to Facebook yesterday, Fiona Apple has revealed that she is canceling her 12-stop South American tour due to her ailing pit bull.

"Here's the thing," she wrote in the scanned letter. "I have a dog Janet, and she's been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go."

Apple, 35, goes on to reveal that her dog has Addison's disease, a rare, chronic disorder that impacts the adrenal glands. She says she rescued Janet in Echo Park in Los Angeles ten years ago 'with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face' - a sign that she has been used in dogfighting.

Ever since then, the dog has been the closest of companions for Apple - who says she was a major inspiration and source of love for her music.

“She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album. She’s my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she’s the one who taught me what love is," she continued. "I can’t come to South America. Not now."

Apple, asking for her fans blessing, apologized for the cancelation, but said she needs to be the one to "sing her to sleep, of escorting her out."

"Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed," she says. "But this decision is instant. These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship. I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important."